Consumers and businesses increasingly rely on computers to perform tasks and store data. A backup system may improve the reliability of a computing system by allowing a user to return a file, such as a data file, a system file, or an application file, to a previous state. For example, if a file is corrupted, unintentionally deleted, or otherwise unintentionally changed, the backup system may recover a previous version of the file.
Various backup systems may allow a user to recover a previous version of a file by copying the previous version to the original location of the file, overwriting any current version of the file. However, this conventional file recovery process may cause data loss or system instability. For example, if the copy of the previous version of the file is corrupt, the backup system may overwrite the current version of the file with a corrupt version of the file. If the file is a data file, this may result in data loss. If the file is a system or application file, this may result in system instability.